With the recent decision by the Russian government to ban Americans from adopting children from their country, it is becoming more and more difficult for families who wish to provide a child with parents who will love them. While some families are not deterred by this news, they are becoming discouraged, as it is difficult to provide a loving home to children orphaned in America as well.

This morning, USA Today had an article about prospective parents having difficulties adopting children in the United States. The author of the article commented on the difficulties that many families have in even becoming foster parents.

As a result, the number of U.S. infant adoptions (about 90,000 in 1971) has fallen from 22,291 in 2002 to 18,078 in 2007, according to the most recent five-year tally from the private National Council for Adoption. Though the numbers are only current through 2007, the group's president, Chuck Johnson, expects the number has remained fairly stable since 2007, citing efforts to promote adoption.

There are fewer foster-care children available, because more are reunited with birth parents or adopted by relatives and foster parents. The overall number of kids in the system, 401,000 in 2011, has hit a 20-year low. The number waiting to be adopted fell from 130,637 in 2003 to 104,236 in 2011, according to the U.S. Children's Bureau. Their median age is 7 and they're a mix of races (28% black, 22% Hispanic and 40% white.)

However, it’s likely that contributing to the lack of children available for adoption is the prevalence of abortion in America. For example, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation’s largest abortion provider, has released its annual report from 2011-2012 and it shows an alarming statistic: PPFA performed 333,964 abortions in 2011 alone. There is no doubt that this number has increased during the 2012 time frame.

FRC even released a brochure highlighting how Planned Parenthood is one of the greatest advocates and promoters of abortion services. Yet PPFA accounts for only about one-quarter of all abortions nationwide.

While the abortion rates are alarming, there is no doubt that this could be tied to the number of children available for adoption in the United States. Our roughly 1.2 million annual victims of abortion could have been placed with families who wished to love and provide a future for them. Who knows? They could have grown up to find cures for fatal diseases or become future leaders in government, etc. Or they simply could have enjoyed their God-given right to life as the adopted children of loving families. We will never know.